Do You Give Your Articles A Cool Off Period?

Cooling off… Detroit RiverWalk
Originally uploaded by NoneOther… {Captured In Lights}…

In the online world where publication can take place immediately, it's easy to overlook one of the most important parts of the writing process–the cool off period. 

What's the cool off period?

Well, after you write your article it's a great idea to set it aside for at least a day or so before you submit it.

What should be happening during that cool off time?

When we're in the heat of the writing process we can get so used to looking at our article that obvious mistakes escape our eyes. We also get used to reading and re-reading our article to the point where awkward sentences and phrasing may start to sound normal to us. 

Taking a step back from your article gives your mind a chance to rest.

Really, you may leave your article thinking, "This one is perfect–I'm absolutely certain that I've proofread it backwards and forwards and there are no mistakes here!"

Then, after being away from the article for a day or so you look at it again, and it's like you're seeing it for the first time.

You say, "Where did all these errors come from? I forgot to put a conclusion to my article! Can you believe that embarrassing typo in the title that I almost sent out to publishers?! Thank goodness I caught these before submitting!"

I know how tempting it is to whip out an article and then right away submit it for publication–we all love immediate gratification! 

But article marketing is not like other forms of online publishing where you can readily make your corrections at the drop of a hat. 

If you make a mistake on a blog post, all you have to do is edit the post and re-publish–no harm done. 

If you make a mistake on your website content, same thing–correct it and no harm done.

But remember, the article you submit will (hopefully!) be picked up for reprint by tons of websites over which you have no control potentially for years to come.

This means that even if you recognize errors after you submit your article and try to do a correction, you won't be able to make corrections to your article on the sites that have already picked it up for publication. 

And that means that for a long time (perhaps forever!) there will be typo laden articles with your name attached to them floating around the internet for the world to see. 

So, I encourage you to think of your articles as a product that you're sending out to customers, a product that needs to be as near to perfect as possible.

I am learning to let my articles "cool down" more and more, and I tend to enter an article into SubmitYOURArticle.com, and then wait a day or two to submit it. Then I read over it with a critical and fresh eye pretending to be a reader who stumbled upon my article. 

It helps a lot–I often make changes in those few moments before making the final commitment to submit, and I send my article out with a lot more confidence that it's a product I'm proud of. 

Question for you: The cool down period is a little bit of discipline that we article marketers need to learn to embrace–do you do it? 

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